'Dogs climb big Hill to knock off Campbell

Published: Saturday, January 25, 2014 at 09:37 PM.

BOILING SPRINGS – The Gardner-Webb men’s basketball team finally made something happen against a conference opponent at Paul Porter Arena.

GWU jumped out to a 10-0 lead, frustrated Campbell with its defense, and was solid at the foul line down the stretch for a 66-48 victory on its home court Saturday night.

It was the first home win in Big South Conference action after three losses for GWU (10-11, 3-3 league) and it came against the Camels (10-11, 4-2), who entered the contest atop the league’s Northern Division.

“I expected there to be a lot of misses, our coaches really did a good job of getting us ready on defense,” said Hill, an Adel, Ga., native. “Defense is where I’m really trying to step up. I know I can score the ball.”

Hill’s effort on that end helped force Campbell’s leading scorer Reco McCarter to a 4-for-14 shooting effort.

Gardner-Webb, which plays at Longwood Wednesday, also got 11 points from Naji Hibbert and 10 by Donta Harper. GWU out-rebounded the Camels 43-28 and connected on 16 of 22 foul shots (72.7 percent).

BOILING SPRINGS – The Gardner-Webb men’s basketball team finally made something happen against a conference opponent at Paul Porter Arena.

GWU jumped out to a 10-0 lead, frustrated Campbell with its defense, and was solid at the foul line down the stretch for a 66-48 victory on its home court Saturday night.

It was the first home win in Big South Conference action after three losses for GWU (10-11, 3-3 league) and it came against the Camels (10-11, 4-2), who entered the contest atop the league’s Northern Division.

“I expected there to be a lot of misses, our coaches really did a good job of getting us ready on defense,” said Hill, an Adel, Ga., native. “Defense is where I’m really trying to step up. I know I can score the ball.”

Hill’s effort on that end helped force Campbell’s leading scorer Reco McCarter to a 4-for-14 shooting effort.

Gardner-Webb, which plays at Longwood Wednesday, also got 11 points from Naji Hibbert and 10 by Donta Harper. GWU out-rebounded the Camels 43-28 and connected on 16 of 22 foul shots (72.7 percent).

“It was a good team win for us,” said GWU coach Tim Craft. “We really attacked the paint and got to the foul line 22 times. We only took eight threes and we hit four, so we were efficient.”

The ‘Dogs held Campbell, which was led by Andrew Ryan’s 14 points, to 32.7 percent shooting. That included a frigid 6-29 (20.7 percent) effort from the three-point line.

“They (Campbell) are a good team and they’re the top team in our league in offensive efficiency,” Craft said. “I’m really proud of the way we competed on that end.

“We tried to key on their strengths and weaknesses. We wanted to make their shooters into drivers, and their drivers to shoot. And we did a pretty good job with that.”

The win was special several reasons. The ‘Dogs had dropped three tough Big South encounters on their own court before this one.

“It was tough for us,” said Hill. “We had a team meeting and we said we had to keep our heads up, that things would fall our way soon. We didn’t give up and kept fighting.”